The worth of young people reading and being read to.
Whenever I have interviewed children – and their parents – for a school place my key question has been: Do you read often?
If they say yes … I know we already have a young person on a great path.
If they say no … my response is that we need to change that!
This article – among many others – supports that plan.
”A child who starts reading for fun by age nine enters adolescence with measurably different brain structure than a peer who never picked up the habit. That is the central finding of a study published in Psychological Medicine, which examined brain scans and cognitive tests from more than 10,000 young adolescents across the United States.”
”Researchers from the University of Cambridge and Fudan University in Shanghai found that early reading for pleasure correlated with larger total brain cortical areas and volumes. The differences appeared in regions that govern language processing, attention control, and sensory integration, including the temporal, frontal, and insula cortices. Those same regions have been previously linked to improved mental health and behavioral regulation.”
“Teenagers who read for pleasure every day correctly identified 26 percent more words than peers who never read in their spare time. Those who grew up in homes with many books scored 42 percent higher than teenagers from homes with few books. After the team controlled for parental education, occupation, and cognitive tests administered when the children were five, daily readers still scored 12 percent higher.”
For the record – not only did I encourage my children to read – I read to them every night from when they were two until 14 years old. These were some of the books:
The Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Father Christmas Letters – J. R. R. Tolkien
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil – J. R. R. Tolkien
Farmer Giles of Ham – J. R. R. Tolkien
Smith of Wootton Major – J. R. R. Tolkien
Leaf by Niggle – J. R. R. Tolkien
The Magician’s Nephew – C. S. Lewis
The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe – C. S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy – C. S. Lewis
Prince Caspian – C. S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair – C. S. Lewis
The Last Battle – C. S. Lewis
Pilgrims Regress – C. S. Lewis
The Back of the North Wind – George MacDonald
The Princess and the Goblin – George MacDonald
The Princess and Curdie – George MacDonald
The Golden Key – George MacDonald
The Complete Fairy Tales – George MacDonald
Phantastes – George MacDonald
The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer – Mark Twain
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain
Tom Brown’s Schooldays – Thomas Hughes
The Enchanted Castle – E. Nesbit
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
The Tanglewood’s Secret – Patricia St John
Treasures of the Snow – Patricia St John
The Victor – Patricia St John
Rainbow Garden – Patricia St John
The Mystery of Pheasant Cottage – Patricia St John
Star of Light – Patricia St John
The Secret of the Fourth Candle – Patricia St John
In the Grip of Winter – Colin Dann
The Big Fisherman – Lloyd C. Douglas
The Robe – Lloyd C. Douglas
The Jungle Book (1 & 2) – Rudyard Kipling
Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe
Swiss Family Robinson – Jonnie Wyss
Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson
To Kill a Mocking Bird – Harper Lee
Fantastic Mr Fox – Roald Dahl
The Minpins – Roald Dahl
James and the Giant Peach – Roald Dahl
The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – Roald Dahl
Revolting Rhymes – Roald Dahl
The Giraffe the Pelly and Me – Roald Dahl
Dirty Beasts – Roald Dahl
Chalie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
Esio Trot – Roald Dahl
My Year – Roald Dahl
The BFG – Roald Dahl
Boy – Roald Dahl
George’s Marvelous Medecine – Roald Dahl
Danny The Champion of the World – Roald Dahl
Going Solo – Roald Dahl
Matilda – Roald Dahl
The Secret Garden Frances – Hodgson Burnett
Hans Andersons Fairy Tales Hans Christian Anderson
I Am David – Anne Holm
The Silver Sword – Ian Serraillier
Peter Pan – J. M. Barrie
Artemis Fowl – Eion Colfer
Winnie the Pooh – A. A. Milne
And Then We Were Six – A. A. Milne
Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
The Little White Horse – Elizabeth Gouge
Aesop’s Fables – Aesop
White Fang – Jack London
Dragon Boy – Dick King-Smith
Babe – Dick King-Smith
Charlotte’s Web – E. B. White
Stuart Little – E. B. White
The Knight and the Squire – Terry Jones
Watership Down – Richard Adams
The Odyssey – Homer
Anamalia – Graeme Base
The Eleventh Hour – Graeme Base
The Discovery of Dragons – Graeme Base
The 27th Annual African Hippopotamus Race – Morris Lurie
The Snow Goose – Paul Gallico
Gullivers Travels – Jonathan Swift
Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
365 Bible Stories – God
Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass – Lewis Carroll
Alan Quartermain – Rider Haggard
Exodus – Leon Uris
The Storm – Frederick Buechner
On the Road with the Archangel – Frederick Buechner
Son of Laughter – Frederick Buechner
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte